Stakeholder and community involvement in tourism planning and heritage management are relatively new practices. Still, new ICT tools for cooperation and inclusion open up ample opportunities and, therefore, many published cases in these fields. When heritage and tourism are the basis of creating a sizeable cultural ecosystem, such digital tools are indispensable, as ICT effectively connects parties in very different geographic locations. However, how effective are the online community involvement tools for distant stakeholders’ cooperation among abstract cultural notions? Can online platforms and social media replace live interactions? The DANUrB Interreg DTP project aimed to create a transnational brand connecting the settlements along the Danube by demonstrating their unique yet similar cultures, united by the cultural flows along the river in history. The project worked in 7 countries, reaching 10,000 people on site, while only on Facebook more than 5 million page visits have been registered. The various online and analogue tools used in the project permitted the analysis of the usability of the different methods. While digital tools were essential to organise data and work for project partners and to provide news and generate interest for a broad audience, local stakeholders could only be engaged by analogue participatory techniques, always requiring personal contact with project partners to be actively involved in the co-creation process of a new brand, in tourism destination building and heritage management.